Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! is the best Sundance movie that 2004 never delivered

Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! movie review: The best Sundance movie that 2004 never delivered BARRY HERTZ PUBLISHED 1 HOUR AGO Open this photo in gallery: Rinko Kikuchi stars as a Japanese ballroom dancer navigating love and loss in Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! SONY PICTURES CLASSICS/SUPPLIED COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER Listen to this article Learn more about audio Log in or create a free account to listen to this article. Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! Directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka Written by Josef Kubota Wladyka and Nicholas Huynh Starring Rinko Kikuchi, Alberto Guerra and Alejandro Edda Rating PG Run time 122 minutes Opens in select theatres Sept. 25 Critic’s Pick When I first learned about the existence of a movie named Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, I assumed I must’ve fallen into a space-time wormhole, and emerged out the other end in 2004, when such quirk-heavy films were sprouting up like weeds. In addition to the film’s whimsical title, take its logline: A Japanese ballroom dancer in Tokyo must learn to embrace love after loss when two dashing, mysterious new figures stroll into her life: a suave but married Spanish dance instructor, and a giant, magical black crow who may or may not embody the spirit of her late husband. If that material isn’t fit to snag the Audience Award at Sundance circa the early aughts, I’m not sure what might be. Open this photo in gallery: Alejandro Edda plays a suave but married Spanish dance instructor. SONY PICTURES CLASSICS/SUPPLIED Yet after sitting down to actually watch Josef Kubota Wladyka’s film, I can confidently say that the feature lands as far more than the sum of its eccentric, indie-film-cliché parts. A toe-tapping romance that is as effortlessly charming as it is fully aware of its high-concept trappings, Ha-Chan is a movie fit for any era, so long as there are audiences out there eager to be swept off their feet by a director bold enough to take the lead. Yes, the stuff about the magical bird is true. And yeah, the episodic structure that Wladyka and his co-writer Nicholas Huynh employ, complete with chapter titles read out in two languages with increasing enthusiasm, can be just a little bit eye-rolly. But mostly, this romantic comedy, which follows the misadventures of a dancer named Haru (Rinko Kikuchi) after she loses her husband (Alejandro Edda) to a heart attack, clicks every step of the way. Open this photo in gallery: The film blends Japanese, Spanish and American influences…